<$BlogRSDURL$>

My letters

Submitted letters to the editor and other parties. Only a few of these were published.

Sunday, June 20, 2004


To the letters editor:

Sharon Lerner has it right that the prospect of two totally unappealing candidates for President this Fall will lead many people to express their disgust by staying home ("Awkward Kerry, Hopeless Bush," June 15). But the media are to blame for not letting people know there is a real alternative for President (not Ralph Nader, who stands for nothing but Ralph Nader), one who will remake America according to the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. He is Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian Party candidate for President, now budgeted to be on the ballot in every state (http://www.badnarik.org/). A vote for a Democrat or Republican is a wasted vote; you are always disappointed. I urge your readers to revolt against the big parties not by staying home, but by voting for Badnarik for President. If you were planning on staying home anyway, what have you got to lose?
____________________________________

(0) comments

Monday, June 14, 2004


To the editor:

It is most instructive having Senator Velmanette Montgomery's letter about the public schools appear in the same issue as Shavana Abruzzo's article about the public schools (Flatbush Life, June 14). The senator, predictably, says more money is needed, while Shavana shows that creative solutions are needed, having nothing to do with money and going way beyond money. The senator should know that more money is not needed. The District of Columbia has the highest expenditure per pupil in the nation except New Jersey, and has the worst performance. It is not lack of money, but the monopoly characteristic of public education that makes the outcomes unsatisfactory.

Parents have a voice in the operation of the public schools, but voice has proved useless in improving them. Compare parents' choices in obtaining education for their children versus their choices in buying a can of corn. Parents have a huge variety of canned corn from which to choose, but no voice in how it should be produced. If they don't like one kind of corn, they buy a different kind. Imagine buying corn by being assigned to a government-run grocery store in your "grocery zone" that sells only one kind, and when you complain that you don't like the corn, to be told that the corn is bad because the store needs more money. No one would stand for that kind of arrangement for buying corn, but for educating their children it seems to be OK.

It is choice, not voice, that produces satisfactory outcomes. Many parents choose their children's school by living in a "good" public-school zone. Others, who cannot afford to do that, should be able to choose their children's school, too.
____________________________________

(0) comments

Saturday, June 05, 2004


To the letters editor:

Apparently, Lew Fidler can't stand to see anyone have a good time. Whenever councilmember Fatler "weighs in" on an issue it is to complain about something he can't control ("Demand For $1 Vans Too Great?", Flatbush Life, June 7). In this case, he "despises" that riders are getting what they want (transportation) and drivers are getting what they want (customers and profits). If the honorable councilmember would pay more attention to his obesity and less to peaceful people who are engaging in peaceful transactions for their mutual benefit, we would all be better off. Live and let live, libertarians say. (It is Libertarian Party policy not to make ad hominem attacks, but I couldn't resist.)
____________________________________

(0) comments

Tuesday, June 01, 2004


To the editor:

May I suggest that the Brooklyn AIDS Task Force (BATF) ("Letters," Flatbush Life, May 17) change its name? BATF stands for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the outfit that was responsible for the unnecessarily brutal and deadly assault on the Branch Davidians at Waco. The issue at Waco could have been resolved with much less violence by Texas state authorities if the feds had stayed out of it. The Branch Davidians were charged only with local crimes, and the children who were the alleged victims might have preferred not being incinerated.
____________________________________

(0) comments

To the letters editor:

I am greatly interested in the New York Committee for Jobs and Economic Justice. To my knowledge, no one has ever defined economic justice, and without a definition we can have no real goal. How will we know when economic justice has been achieved?

Here's my definition: "economic justice is that state of affairs in which every human being on earth is free to buy or sell anything that is available, including their labor, (and free not to buy or sell anything), without coercion or fear of violence, and without restrictions as to prices or terms of trade, on conditions freely and mutually agreed upon between buyer and seller for their mutual benefit; and in which the 13th amendment is honored in that no person is involuntarily forced to provide goods or services for another, or forced to pay for the goods or services of another, unless convicted of a crime."

A moment's reflection will reveal that the major source of restriction on freedom to trade, and the attendant violence, comes from government; and that the major violator of the 13th amendment is government. Government is the source of economic injustice; personal freedom promotes justice of all kinds, including the economic.

If the Committee agrees with my definition, have them give me a call and I will join them at the barricades.
____________________________________

(0) comments

To the letters editor:

With our New York City Council foolishly intent on outlawing all the dangers to which humans could fall heir, perhaps the Council could consider outlawing itself. If even one life is saved, it would be worth it.
____________________________________

(0) comments

To the letters editor:

Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris' "non-threat" to arts executives demonstrates one more reason why government should not fund the arts ("A Deputy Mayor Hits Culturati on Giff Giving," May 31). This incident shows how taxpayer money finds its way into political campaign chests by the route taxpayer to public coffers to arts executive to campaign chest. Another reason why government should not fund the arts: your tax money should not be used to support art of which you disapprove or just don't like. It is a gross violation of freedom of association and freedom of expression to force people to pay for any art other than what they voluntarily choose. Another reason: politicians fancy themselves art critics and use art criticism to score political points. Remember Rudy Giuliani and the Brooklyn Museum?
____________________________________

(0) comments

To the letters editor:

The squeals of those affected by education budgets can be heard coming out of 110 Livingston Street as usual (“Budget ax will smart: Levy”, July 31, 2001). The state is increasing its share of the school budget by “only” 3%. But the taxpaying public can rightly ask, What became of the additional money we gave the schools last year, five years ago, the last fifteen years? Huge infusions of money into the public schools have left the United States with the highest per-pupil expenditure in the world, but the performance of our students is no better than it was fifteen years ago, and dismal by international standards. The money has simply been wasted, spent on things that do not improve student performance. $125 billion of Title I money, intended to close the performance gap between poor students and the others, has left the gap exactly unchanged. Class size has been reduced steadily year after year, from 40 to 20, with at best marginal improvements in student performance.

Schools need much stronger incentives to improve than they now have. I suggest we take a lesson from Florida, where 78 of the worst public schools were identified in 1999 and given one year to improve or each risk losing several hundred of their students and the money that goes with them. 76 of the schools were able to do so, using methods already well known. If we in New York were to implement a mechanism whereby parents could remove their children from failing schools en masse, the taxpayers could be assured that school budgets would be spent wisely and would result in improved student performance.
____________________________________

(0) comments

To the letters editor:

Brian Jones is right ("How to Build a GOPer," Letters, Park Slope Courier, May 24). The way to increase the Republican vote is by making people richer. Stanley Gershbein is right, too. The way to increase the Democrat vote is by increasing handouts and entitlements. But Stanley doesn't go far enough. The very raison d'etre of 21st-century Democrats depends on creating generation after generation of poor people, and Democrats go to great lengths to insure it happens. The working poor are given unlimited free medical that is taken away if they earn $1 more than the limit, to insure they will not earn "too" much. Teen-agers with little skills who might be worth $4 per hour to sweep up are forbidden by law to work at that wage, to insure that such youngsters will never get jobs. And to insure that poor people will not start small businesses, Democrats have piled on so many restrictions, license and permit requirements, employment mandates, inspections, regulations, fees, fines, and taxes that most poor folks are daunted and don't even try. Oh, and wait, teach the children only in Spanish to assure that their English will always be poor. This is not mere theory. Democrats have been using these methods for at least 40 years, with devastating, dazzling success.

Add me to Sophie Tucker and Mae West, who both said something like, "I've been rich and I've been poor; believe me, honey, rich is better."
____________________________________

(0) comments

Archives

04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004   06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004   07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004   08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004   09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004   10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004   12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005   04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005   06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005   12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?